With just two days to go until the competition in Helsinki, Salmond said Scotland had the right to take an equal place alongside the other singing nations of Europe.

The SNP leader. has proposed his deputy Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland's representative insisting she had the full set of attributes required of a Eurovision winner.

"Nicola is a remarkable performer. She can do the Dana, Johnny Logan, misty-eyed sweetheart thing all day long, but I think that Eurovision has moved on.

"It's time for Scotland to jiggle its crotch in the face of European middle-class complacency."

He added: "The best way to do that is to have Nicola Sturgeon strapped into a leather gimp suit and wailing like a banshee."

Sturgeon's entry is likely to be a 'mash-up' of the 1975 Suzi Quatro classic Your Mama Won't Like Me and Scots Wha Hae.

Friends of Sturgeon say she has an "unusual" singing voice and prefers athletic dance routines. "Put it this way, I wouldn't want to be sitting in the first four rows of the Helsinki Arena," said an SNP source.

The SNP deputy leader has an impressive pedigree in showbusiness competitions having won the Bellahouston Suzi Quatro Look-a-Like title five times since 1997.

Gordon Brown accused Salmond of displaying 'fascist tendencies' and said the British entry, Flying the Flag (For you) by Scooch, was 'the best song he had ever heard'.